Seating and Part Assignment After a Weighted Audition
Seventy-four students audition for fifty-eight seats across two bands: a 46-member Wind Ensemble and a 12-member Symphonic Band. Three adjudicators score each student 1–10 in five categories: tone, intonation, rhythm, sight-reading, and range/technique. Two trumpeters are on your desk. Student A totals 44 of 50, has a reliable written D6, but plays about fifteen cents sharp once above mezzo-forte and has a thin, edgy sound. Student B totals 38, plays with a centered sound and solid intonation, but tops out at a shaky written G5. There are three trumpet seats in Wind Ensemble. Separately, four percussionists auditioned and you have two seats.
1. State the ranking policy you should have published before auditions, and explain how weighting protects you here.
Read the worked answer
The policy has to exist in writing before anyone plays, because every contested decision afterward is really an argument about the rules.
Publish the five categories, the 1–10 scale, the descriptors for each score, and the weighting. For a wind ensemble, weighting tone and intonation above range/technique is defensible and can be stated in advance: range is the easiest attribute to develop and the least useful if the player cannot blend, while intonation and tone are what the section actually depends on. Publish the aggregation rule too - whether the three adjudicators' totals are averaged, whether any category has a floor, and what the tie-breakers are.
Blind auditions behind a screen and randomized order remove the name bias that makes a policy meaningless. Under this weighting, Student A's 44 does not automatically outrank Student B's 38, because A's fifteen-cent sharpness and thin sound are precisely the categories you weighted most heavily; a raw total hides that. Announce the weighting when you announce the auditions, not when you announce the results.
2. Place A and B in the trumpet section and assign parts, with reasoning.
Read the worked answer
Place both in Wind Ensemble and assign them to different jobs. Give Student A the first part: the range is real, exposed, and hard to substitute, and the high register is where A is genuinely strongest.
Give Student B the second or third part and make B the section's pitch anchor. In most sections the inner parts hold the sustained sonorities that the rest of the choir tunes against, and a centered player with reliable intonation is worth more there than another high note. Seating B next to A also gives A an in-section reference to tune the sharpness against, which no amount of individual tuner work fixes as efficiently.
This is a deliberate departure from strict rank order, so write it down. Note the part assignments and the reason in your records, and tell both students the reasoning in the same terms you would use with a parent - A is on first because of range, B is on second because of intonation and blend. If a challenge comes, the answer is a documented pedagogical judgment, not an arbitrary preference.
3. How do you handle the four-into-two percussion situation and communicate results to everyone who did not get what they wanted?
Read the worked answer
Percussion cannot be ranked like a trumpet section, because the four players may not be interchangeable - one may be a strong timpanist and a weak keyboard player. Score the four on the specific instruments the rep requires, then assign by coverage: the two seats go to the pair whose combined skills cover all the parts, not to the top two totals. If the fourth player is a strong keyboardist and the rep has a demanding mallet part, that player may be the one you cannot cut.
For communication, release results on one day, in writing, with part assignments included, so rumor does not fill the gap. Speak individually to the students who were cut or moved down before the list goes up. Give each a specific, actionable reason and a specific next step - a lesson focus, a scale routine, a re-audition date - not a general encouragement. For parents, lead with the placement criteria and the documented weightings. Keep a short written log of placements and reasons; the paper trail is what makes an appeal a conversation instead of a dispute.